


The Runner

by Delatrista



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, blacksunweek2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25506286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delatrista/pseuds/Delatrista
Summary: A reimagining of a particular sequence in v4e3, Of Runaways and Stowaways, largely part of a personal rewrite I’ve been doing of v4.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Sun Wukong
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	The Runner

She’d felt eyes on her for days.

It started before she came to the unnamed village with the nearest port to Vale, at the very eastern edge of Sanus. The burn of a stare fixed on her back was familiar, and Blake had avoided it as best she could. She’d changed her dirtied and bloodied clothing as soon as she’d found a shop stocked with Huntsmen gear; partially to get out of the days-old rags (to escape the memories the bloodstains held, though she refused to linger on that now. She could mourn when she was sure she was safe), and also to try and shake her tailer. She could admit that the outfit she’d chosen wasn’t the most conspicuous— but the store only had a single white coat for sale, and she had wanted some form of cover from the elements despite knowing she was going to a tropical climate. She only hoped the difference in her attire would be enough to lose whoever was following her.

Much to her dismay, it wasn’t. And the target on her back didn’t fade.

Sitting in a motel with the blinds drawn for days left her at her wits’ end. She was on edge. She barely slept. Most of her time was spent peering through the wooden slats turned downward to block out the outside world. She was watching for anyone with too sharp a glint in their gaze. Anyone too relaxed or trying too hard to appear casual. The scant hours she did sleep she thrashed, haunted by screaming and fire. Crimson hair darted at the edge of her vision whenever she dared to leave her room, and the wait for a ship heading to Menagerie became hell to endure. But eventually one came, one named _The Pride,_ en route to various ports along Anima’s coast before delivering supplies to Kuo Kuana, Menagerie’s capital, and coincidentally the only settlement on the island large enough to have a name known to the outside world.

Blake purchased her ticket with stolen lien. It made her heart hurt every time she lifted wallets and picked pockets, but she was no stranger to scrounging like this. Her time in the White Fang had been arduous, and she’d learned to survive any way she could. She’d had no other choice…especially after _he_ began to turn on her—

But she couldn’t think about that. It wasn’t safe. Despite her efforts, however, the cracks in her composure were growing. Fractures were giving way to an inevitable breakdown, but she couldn’t afford to fall to the pressure yet. She had to get to Kuo Kuana before she broke. She had to see her parents. Even if they hated her, she needed to know that they were safe, that they hadn’t fallen to Adam’s wicked blade like she almost had that night…

She had hoped boarding _The Pride_ would mean her tail would give up, but he hadn’t. Whoever he was, he was determined to see this through.

She knew it was a _he_ after the third day at sea. Her habit of locking herself in her room didn’t change after coming aboard, but there had been multiple instances where room service wasn’t able to come to her quarters and she’d been forced to venture to the cafeteria. Each time she opened her door a tall, too-broad shadow slipped down the hall before she could fully see him. She caught sight of ice-blue eyes staring at her sometimes, and it froze her blood while the man disappeared with ease. The tension it caused in her spine made her teeth ache, and Gambol Shroud never left her back as her sleep grew more fitful by the day.

By the time a week had passed, she’d had enough. Her cabin was below deck, tucked away from most of the other passengers. Narrow hallways, low ceilings, and steep staircases separated her from the sky, and claustrophobia was beginning to set in; alongside sea-sickness caused by the surging waves. Determination urged her to make her way to the deck for the first time since the ship had left the harbor. Despite her mysterious follower, she wanted to feel daylight at least once on this trip. More than that, she was tired of being a tired gazelle, waiting for the lion to make his move. Her injury, the crescent-shaped scar standing out in a dull violet stain against the pale expanse of her stomach, was healed enough that she felt confident to handle a fight. More than confident, in fact. She _wanted_ it. The urge for combat sang in her blood, burning away the fear that had previously occupied her. Gambol Shroud served as her invitation for her follower to reveal himself.

An endless expanse of sapphire waters greeted her warmly as she crested the landing, while the white sun travelled through a sky clear of clouds and warmed the light planks that barely creaked under her feet. The deck was largely clear of people; families were sparsely scattered across the space, and Blake looked up to the second tier out of habit, and saw no-one above her. Relief washed over her more strongly than she’d anticipated, and her shoulders sagged when she realized she didn’t feel the heaviness of a gaze on her for the first time in weeks. A small flicker of hope stirred within her, an unfamiliar feeling after so long; perhaps whoever this person was, whatever their motive, had gotten off with the most recent delivery _The Pride_ had made earlier in the day.

It was a far-flung hope, and highly unlikely. But Blake clung to it nonetheless. She had little else.

She found an empty section of the starboard side to occupy. The second floor of the deck was behind her while she leaned against the thin metal railing separating her from the ocean, but it didn’t concern her. A paneled wall, painted stark white, was close behind, leaving little room for someone to sneak up on her and casted no shadows to hide within.

She wanted to watch the water instead of her back for once, and savored the salt-tinged wind when it stung her cheeks. She had the urge to feel it stir the fur of her ears; she could just barely discern the breeze through the fabric of her ribbon, but she didn’t yet want to risk the discovery of her identity, despite the presence of other Faunus on the ship.

_What am I doing_ , she wondered in despair. Her eyes tracked a school of fish that leapt above the waves. Their scales flashed silver in the sunlight, fins thrashing before they disappeared back beneath the waves. _There’s no way I can just, just show up and expect them to…what? Take me back? It’s been three years…!_

Her fists tightened where she had them rested across the railing. This was surely a mistake. She couldn’t be so foolish as to approach her parents directly. She should watch them from afar, make sure they were safe that way…leave them a note explaining the danger they were in, and then…she didn’t know what to do after that. Shed her identity and stay out of the White Fang’s radar? Disappear into the Menagerie wilderness? Both? The deserts were dangerous for large groups, but Blake had spent three years living in such harsh conditions. All the better to retreat somewhere the White Fang would have a difficult time tracing her to, rather than sitting in one place and putting those around her in danger. She drew violence to her like a magnet, she knew that now. Beacon had been a harsh lesson, one that she refused to repeat. And so she settled on her plan; she would ensure her parents were warned of the threat, and then she would go somewhere she couldn’t hurt those she loved again. It was for the best, she reasoned, even if her heart sunk along with the fish she watched crest the surface and drop back into the ocean.

A scream shattered her thoughts.

Blake dropped into a crouch. Her heart-rate broke into a sprint in the second it took for her blood to pound underneath her skin. She half expected bullets to screech past her head, and she ducked to avoid the onslaught. Her hand reached for Gambol Shroud in a blur. Shaking fingers grasped the hilt. Her breath was already heaving, and she turned towards the source of the sound, no, the _scream_ —

—The scream which, she realized, wasn’t a scream at all. It was _laughter_.

She didn’t release her weapon as a child ran past her, eyes screwed shut and giggling as she went. Her hand was fisted around a toy, and Blake slowly loosened her grip as a pair of adults trailed behind the girl with easy smiles. They didn’t notice Blake’s combative posture, the violence and fear behind her eyes. Perhaps that was for the best, she thought. She couldn’t imagine what those parents would think of a person willing to cut down a child, thinking it was an enemy. She straightened out of her stance, lowered her arm back to her side, and watched the family until they disappeared around the corner of the upper-deck. Once she was certain they weren’t coming back, she turned back to the ocean.

“Traveling alone?”

She was sick, _so_ _sick_ of her first instinct being to reach for her weapon every time she was startled. But it was something she did without thought these days, and her arm flashed back to Gambol Shroud while she turned to face the person who had addressed her.

“Now, now…no threat here.” A grizzled old man raised his hands in supplication, even as her blade was halfway out of its scabbard. His voice rasped against his throat, and the sound grated on her ears. “Just here to chat.”

Blake eyed him warily.

His attire wasn’t meant for combat, she could discern that straight away. He wore a black coat adorned by gold trimmings, and a white captain’s hat bearing the symbol of an anchor framed by laurel leaves on the front. White gloves covered his hands, and crisply pressed white pants sheathed his legs. Hs black shoes were polished to a sheen that reflected the sun in a way no warrior’s footwear would. She observed him from head to toe and back again, searching for hidden holsters or sheathes and finding silhouettes of neither in his clothing. 

She didn’t lower her arm for a moment as she watched him, but eventually she relaxed her stance.

“And why is that?” she asked flatly. She couldn’t resist the roll of her eyes as she finally released her weapon, which fell back into its sheath with a soft click at her back.

“Well…” the old man sighed, and leaned against the railing beside her. “…not many people travel by boat on their own. It can be quite a _lonely_ voyage.” When he looked her in the eye, he smiled. “But I found those that do, tend to have the more… _interesting_ stories.”

Blake’s hands tightened back into fists. It seemed to be the natural position for her fingers to take, when they weren’t wrapped around her weapon. She returned once again to the railing, and turned her head to face away from the man. From his prying eyes and not-so-subtle attempt to get her to talk.

“Maybe it’s just better for some people to be alone,” she muttered.

The old man, the captain from what she could gather by way of his uniform, hummed a noncommittal sound. His eyes on her weren’t the heavy, threatening stare she’d grown accustomed to over the last few weeks; but his gaze was an uncomfortable weight, nonetheless. He wanted her to talk, though heavens knew why. As if she’d open up to a stranger. As if she hadn’t done that _before_ , and look where that had gotten her. Alone on a boat with an aching scar and her friends scattered to the wind.

She kept her face tilted away from the captain, and eventually he departed with a sigh.

“I’ll leave you be,” he said quietly, and his footsteps faded away into silence. She scoffed once he was gone, and returned to staring at the sparkling water around her.

She was on high alert now, despite the lack of threats. Her every sense was heightened, and her ears kept twitching and swiveling beneath the oppressive tightness of her bow covering them. They tended to ache after being bound for long periods of time, and this time was no exception. It was only exacerbated by the amount of moving they were doing, to keep track of all the sounds around her.

Then she thought about her destination. _The Pride_ only had one more stop in Anima, before making its way to Menagerie. It was a two, maybe three day journey until she would step foot on the shores of the only home she had known before Beacon…where she would walk amongst more of her people than she had in the year since she’d left the Fang. What did she have to fear? Discovery? By now, what was the point? She’d been tailed for this long, so clearly her bow wasn’t concealing her identity from whoever was intent on tracking her. And it _hurt_ , in more ways than one, to conceal her ears.

She recalled the easy acceptance she had been met with over the last few months. Ruby’s fawning over the softness of her fur, Yang’s gratefulness for the risk she took in revealing herself to them, Weiss’s grudging tolerance which gave way to heartfelt respect.

_“I knew you’d look better without the bow,”_ Sun had said to her, a lifetime ago. His voice in her memories was a balm, even though it stung in the open wound of her past. He had been…someone to lean on, though she never would have admitted that to him. And in her head, she could still imagine the particular inflections of his tone, the way his voice would dip and rise to emphasize whatever mood suited him. When he praised her, his voice would grow soft, caressing gently over her ears. Just like the first time he’d seen her without her ribbon. The compliment had sent a shock underneath her skin. The realization that she was being seen for who she was had been a heavy weight...but it had been welcomed.

And now he was gone. Just like her team, he was simply another fractured piece of her history. She clenched her teeth as she thought of what she had done, the damage she had wrought by vanishing. All the support he’d given her crumbled into dust as she took a hammer to it all with her flight. All the times he’d let her talk herself into silence blurred together. Every attempt he made to get under her skin, to learn what made her tick, to learn about _her_.

It was all for nothing, and she’d been a fool for ever allowing herself to think it could have been something.

Maybe not right away; but something had been building between her and the boy with sunshine hair and smiling eyes. Possibilities had stretched out before her, more than she ever would have had in the Fang. And whenever she allowed herself to think about the years she’d had left at Beacon, to dare to hope for the first time in three years...she had started to find herself picturing Sun in them more and more.

But that future laid shattered at her feet, along with the friendships she’d forged with the girls and friends she’d come to love like family, now. All of them— Ruby, Weiss, Yang, and Sun especially— had accepted her without questions, without fail. Their acceptance meant she could expose her ears and be okay with it, to feel the wind and the sun on her fur. It had been freedom.

A thought bubbled slowly to the surface as she wallowed in misery.

Her bow wouldn’t do anything for her in Kuo Kuana and, if she was being honest with herself, it hadn’t done anything for her in a long time. Torchwick had identified her eventually. Adam had recognized her the moment he saw her. Her thoughts turned to what she’d been focused on earlier. Her current follower knew who she was, even with the ribbon in her hair.

She didn’t need it where she was going.

Almost absently, her hand reached up to the knot of the ribbon, centered at the crown of her head. Her fingers tugged until it loosened, and then she pulled it away from her ears.

For the first time in three years, she was exposed to the open sky, sunshine, and prying eyes. The breeze felt as good as she remembered, and the ache already began to loosen once the constriction was removed. She looked around, expecting attention...but no-one was staring at her in abject horror. A Faunus couple further down the deck were looking over the water, and when she looked in the other direction, more people were gathered to watch the seagulls careen through the air. But no-one was looking at her ears. No-one cared.

In her palm, the ribbon looked innocuous. It was just another piece of fabric; but for so long, it had been her shield. Humans hadn’t looked twice at her when it was wrapped over the part of her that made her _not like them_. Without it, what was she? _Who_ was the girl underneath the bow? She scowled at the black tie as it fluttered underneath her closed fingers.

And then she held her fist out, extending past the railing.

She watched the ribbon continue to wave in the breeze. Almost as if it were waving at her, like it knew what was going to happen. Like it was waving goodbye.

Her fingers clenched so tightly her knuckles turned stark white and ached. She wasn’t just holding a ribbon over the ocean. She was holding the armor that she’d donned to protect herself. She was holding her past, with all its pain and fear and uncertainty, wrapped up in the bow she’d worn. Her shoulders heaved with the breath she had been holding until now, and with great effort, she released her grip on the tie she’d used for so long.

It twisted in the air as it fell. The black ribbon stood out harshly against the brilliant blue of the ocean, and her fingers twitched as if to grasp at it even while the ship continued on its course, carrying her away from the decision she’d made.

It hurt, to let go. But even more than that, a weight lifted off her shoulders the moment the ribbon touched the waves. For better or for worse, she was free.

* * *

Blake wasn’t sure how long she stayed out. She had never learned to read the sun’s position in the sky; that task had fallen to Ilia, once upon a time, and Blake didn’t know where the chameleon girl was now. Or if she was even still alive, for that matter. Anything could have happened in the long year and a half that separated Blake from her time in the Fang.

So she simply watched the sun’s descent, uncaring for the passing of time. The heavens faded from bright blue to rich violet and vibrant orange rays before her eyes, and even though her back ached from hunching over the railing for so long, she couldn’t take her gaze off of the sky.

She hadn’t sensed predatory eyes on her in the hours since she came to the surface of the ship, and she hadn’t felt the desire to lock herself in her cabin in the time she’d spent drinking in the sea air. All the passengers were below deck, presumably for dinner, though she wasn’t yet hungry. She _felt_ safe enough.

Though perhaps she was wrong for thinking she was in the clear. Paranoia still surged quietly beneath her skin, but it was a quiet whisper now, not shrill and demanding like it had been before. The absence of others helped with that. A sigh escaped her lips as she rolled her shoulders, loosening the aches that had developed at the top of her spine.

Her ears twitched. A disturbance in the wind rustled her fur. The hair on the back of her neck rose in warning, and she began to pivot to face the change she wouldn’t have noticed had she remained hidden under the bow.

Something was whistling through the air. Too light for human ears to catch; but she wasn’t human.

She was turning too late, though. Her eyes barely caught the glint of steel in the half-light of the sunset and she ducked, cursing herself for her stupidity. She had got too comfortable, assumed wrongly that the absence of her follower’s eyes meant he’d left her alone, and she was going to pay the price for this naivety.

The unmistakeable point of a blade was aiming at her upper arm, and she already knew she wasn’t going to dodge it in time. She braced for the white-hot bite of a weapon digging into her shoulder, still twisting away from the attack despite knowing the inevitable, and then—

—the air was forced out of her assailant in a choked gasp. Blake pressed herself to the deck, and watched as the man was knocked off his feet. He was dressed in nondescript clothing, a dark shirt and light trousers which made him look like any other tourist on the ship. A shortsword was clenched in his hand, but she didn’t stay focused on him for long.

Footsteps were making quick strides towards her, and she braced for yet another combatant to make their move. Before she could move to face the newcomer, however, bright yellow sneakers landed with light steps before her, facing towards the attacker. The crimson and gold muzzle of a shotgun pressed into the wood. She blinked in surprise…and then she gaped like a fish out of water at the familiar sight of such a weapon.

“I was wondering when you were gonna make your move!” Sun’s voice rang out, and it was just as Blake remembered it: equal parts taunting and jovial, he sounded like he was having the time of his life smashing in the face of someone who had been moments away from stabbing her.

Heavens help her, she had been moments away from being stabbed, yet all she could think in that moment was, _how the hell is he here?!_

Blake scrambled to her knees, unsheathing Gambol Shroud with a jerk, and her eyes trailed up the form that was unmistakably Sun Wukong lounging in front of the man he had attacked. His back was turned away from her, and she couldn’t see his face. He was leaning on Ryui and Jingu Bang’s staff form with one hand, the other lightly stuffed into the pocket of his jeans.

Her jaw worked furiously as her brain tried to get its synapses to function again. 

“Sun?!” she finally asked, once she remembered how to speak. Her voice was embarrassingly shrill, tone bordering on disbelief. She didn’t have time to question the situation further, however; the stranger had also gotten to his feet, his sword slicing through the air before him. Over his shoulders a pair of impressive, tawny wings unfurled, and his bright blue eyes were fixed on her with daunting attention.

She stood up, Gambol Shroud’s katana in one hand, and sheath in the other. Her eyes met the man’s cold stare, and for an unending moment, they simply stared at each other. She inhaled a careful breath. Exhaled just as slowly. As the last of her air left her lungs, the hawk Faunus made his move.

He narrowly dodged a sweep of Sun’s weapon as his wings surged to propel him upward, and he twisted high above their heads with practiced grace. Blake traced his path as his wings tucked against his back. She leapt onto the railing beside her, brought her blade close to her chest, then leapt to meet her opponent as he fell towards the ship.

Their swords clashed with a harsh ring of steel, his caught between the cross of her katana and bladed sheath, and the momentum of his fall pushed them both to the deck. He broke the clash and spun, deflecting the lunge of Sun’s staff aimed at the apex of where his wings met his back, before sweeping his legs out in attempt to trip Blake. She stepped back, allowing his foot to faze through the image of a clone, before she pressed the offensive.

He was disarmingly good, much to her chagrin. He had a preternatural sense for where her blade was going to be, long before she could land a hit, and he was just as fast as she was. Each attempt she made met empty air even as he swiped at her and fended Sun off with ease. Those ice blue eyes never left her, and her face fell into a scowl as he remained stoic in the face of her attacks.

He was in the air again just as she was about to slash across his chest, and he flew to the center of the deck in a blur. 

She turned to follow him, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Sun leap to the second tier of the deck. She couldn’t let herself focus on the curiosity she felt, the lingering question about why he was here, however.

That didn’t stop him from bringing it up.

“Fancy seeing you here, huh?” Sun called from above.

Blake didn’t respond immediately. She kept her eyes trained on the sky as she ran for the empty space at the front of the ship. After searching for brown feathers and finding nothing, she skidded to a halt. The heels of her boots squealed across the polished planks, and further back she heard Sun grunt. A weight settled behind her shortly after, and she looked over her shoulder to see him standing back-to-back with her.

“What are you _doing_ here?” she hissed at him, though she wasn’t terribly focused on getting an answer from him yet. Her ears were swiveling wildly, her heart racing in her chest. She kept her weapons clutched close, and the two of them rotated in a slow circle in unspoken agreement to keep watch on the air above them.

It was just her luck, she figured. Not only did she have to fend off this attacker on a civilian-filled vessel in the middle of the ocean, but she also had to worry about Sun getting in the way. Not only that, but she was distracted by his presence, in general. How was he here? And why was he able to prevent their opponent from attacking her with such ease?

_It’s like he knew who this guy is,_ Blake mused. She thought back to what he’d said moments after he’d spared her from being skewered on the man’s blade; _“I was wondering when you were gonna make your move,”_ he had declared. Had he been watching her follower, even as the hawk Faunus had watched her?

And if so, why?

She turned to look over her shoulder at Sun again, but his attention wasn’t on her. And if he was going to respond to her demand, he didn’t get the chance to. 

A storm of feathers enveloped her sight as the man emerged from seemingly all directions. Blake wasn’t entirely sure how. One moment she’d been searching Sun’s face for answers. In the next the flurry obscured her eyes, and she yelled in surprise. Sun did the same, before the warmth of his back was yanked away from her.

She whirled around in time to see Sun’s form careen across the expanse of the deck until he collided with the wall that formed the support for the upper walkway. Her assailant hovered in the space separating them both, and he wasted no time in returning his focus to her.

The ringing of blades striking was all she heard as she parried strike after strike. She could barely keep up, even with her clones at her disposal; the man’s mobility was far superior, and he would fly out of range whenever she stood a chance of landing a hit. She had no time to switch Gambol Shroud’s form to gun mode, or else she ran the risk of the man getting past her sheath. He pressed his advantage, wearing her down as she shadow-stepped and dodged backwards…until there was nowhere left to go.

Her back pressed against the railing on the port side of the ship, and Blake swung her katana in front of her in time to parry another downward slice of the man’s shortsword as he dived towards her from the open sky. He surged downward, pressing against her effort and causing her to bend back.

And in a slow, endless heartbeat, she wasn’t on the deck of the ship anymore.

She was in a burning building. The vaulted windows were blown out from the flames— _but there aren’t any windows on the deck of a ship, Blake—_ and the sky outside of them was dark. Bodies were strewn at her feet, students and soldiers alike, and she was facing her former mentor bearing down on her with a blood-stained chokutō. _He’s not here, he_ can’t _be here, he’s not real—!_

A smile split Adam’s lips into a crimson slash, and Blake screamed.

She dug her feet into the floor and pushed against his blade, even while feeling herself fall back against the pressure. Her spine pressed into the wall— _no, a railing?_ The effort was futile. She knew she was going to fall regardless, in a dizzying sense of déjà vu. Ash and iron filled her lungs, and her stomach burned with a scar she hadn’t received yet—

A gunshot rang out. Adam’s visage wavered, like a mirage in the summer heat, and the Grimm mask over his eyes vanished. Blue eyes still stared at her, but they weren’t _his_. The ones before her burned bright and clear, both unmarred by warped burnt skin imprinted with a brand. They were contorted with pain in a way she had never seen, and were glaring at her over a silver blade, not red.

The push of his sword eased, and reality faded back as the wings she could see lifted behind his back, and created a gust to propel him upward. As he lifted, she saw Sun standing behind her, holding Ryui and Jingu Bang in both hands, pointing a smoking muzzle at the spot where the man had been.

Sun’s gaze was flinty when it met hers. The gray of his eyes was heavy like clouds carrying an impending storm, but he smiled at her nonetheless once she acknowledged him with a nod.

Bright red droplets rained down from above, and she tilted her head up to see the man hovering again. His wings labored to keep him airborne; the feathers on one of them were dripping with blood, and the pain on his face grew. His brow drew low as his expression darkened, and then morphed into rage.

He twisted, turning away from Blake and diving towards Sun with a powerful beat of his wings. She was shaking hard enough her teeth clattered, but she still took a step forward, and with a twitch of her hand Gambol Shroud folded inward, the blade moving to point over the muzzle of her gun. Sun twirled his own weapons, and more shotgun shells flew around him as he fired. But the bullets didn’t connect, and Blake watched in confusion as they somehow went wide of their target, despite Sun shooting from point blank range.

The man landed next to Sun with heavy, uncoordinated steps, and swung his sword in a series of lunges that grew increasingly frantic. Blood flew from his back in tall sprays, forming ruby pinpricks illuminated by the burning light of the setting sun. Blake watched as Sun swung his shotguns— _“I call them gunchucks,” he’d joked once, and she’d rolled her eyes even though she wanted to laugh_ — in restrained circles to knock the sword away. Her breath was caught in her chest, and her eyes narrowed as she waited for the right opportunity to shoot.

Sun’s fingers worked deftly to find the triggers as he flung the guns with controlled fervor, moving so quickly his hands were a blur even to her eyes, and yellow bullet casings clattered around his feet. Yet none of the shots connected like the one he’d fired into the man’s back.

Blake lifted her own weapon, and aimed the muzzle at the combatants. Doubt clenched her mind in firm, cold tendrils as she watched the melee between Sun and the assailant unfold. Could she shoot him while avoiding Sun? What if she missed; could she live with knowing she’d potentially shot him?

In her hesitation, she saw him narrowly retreat in time to avoid a slash to his throat, and her heart stopped while the glint of steel barely grazed the skin of his neck. He was backpedalling, but he continued to fire shot after shot despite being on the defensive.

She couldn’t afford to waste any more time. Her finger hovered over the trigger, but just as she was about to press down…Sun looked at her. And she paused.

Immediately, he stopped deflecting the swordsman’s lunges. The chains connecting the shotguns of Ryui and Jingu Bang flashed, and Sun caught the next arc of the sword underneath them. He grabbed the flat of the blade with a gloved hand and _twisted_ , while the other flung out one half of his free weapon to slam the heel of the gun against the man’s temple.

He reeled back, though he kept hold of his weapon with an unnaturally bent hand. Sun followed, his grip still locked over the sword. He was positioned directly behind the man’s body from Blake’s perspective...but then he shuffled further to her right, and she recognized she had a clear angle that was safe enough to avoid Sun with a stray shot.

She fired.

A flare of white and violet light erupted from the barrel of her pistol as the Dust cartridge inside ignited, and she waited to watch the man crumple from the shot aimed at his knee…

…but he never did.

Despite the awkward grip he had on his sword, and the weeping hole in the scapular where his wing met the space between his shoulder-blades…he dodged the bullet. His leg dipped and he followed suit, falling into a lunge that took him and Sun away from where they had stood in a standstill. The bullet struck the deck just behind Sun, where splinters and shrapnel erupted in a violent spray.

Her brow furrowed. How had he been able to dodge a shot he couldn’t see with such precision, at point blank range no less? Luck only got people so far, and even she couldn’t detect attacks with the kind of timing he had. She shot again, this time aiming for his intact wing. The bullet barely had time to leave the muzzle of her gun before the man released the hilt of his sword, fell to the deck, and rolled past Sun’s feet.

Sun, who was now in the direct path of her shot.

_Shit!_ she thought, and Sun seemed to be thinking the same, his eyes wide and staring down the barrel. He shouted a wordless cry, and flung himself away from the bullet in the same direction that the man had gone. He held onto the shortsword’s blade as he went. Blake watched as the sleeve of his shirt ripped where it was caught in the bullet’s path, and a thin spray of blood followed immediately after it cleared the space that Sun’s heart had previously occupied. 

Next to him, the attacker rose to one knee, and his uninjured wing flared over his shoulder. Feathers seemed to puff outward in a menacing cloud, and as she blinked the wing surged downward to propel him towards the sword in Sun’s hand.

Sun jerked away from the man’s clawing fingers, bringing his free weapon up in an attempt to strike him with one of his shotguns again, but he dodged out of its path and jabbed his hand into Sun’s throat. Sun coughed hoarsely, and his grip on the sword loosened as he fell to his side; the man gripped the hilt, ripped the weapon free of the chains connecting Sun’s shotgun, and aimed the point at Sun’s exposed, vulnerable chest. It plunged downward with blinding speed.

Blake frantically flung Gambol Shroud, and fired the gun just as it left her hand for momentum. She gripped its ribbon tight between her fingers as the weapon arced blade-over-gun, over and over, across the expanse of the deck. It flew past the man’s ankle, and as soon as it cleared his body she yanked it back. The gun-blade spun towards the man’s shin in a menacing obsidian whirlwind, and Blake held tight to her sheath as she prepared to pull the man’s leg out from under him. 

He spun out of her weapon’s path before it had a chance to hook around him. Blake grimaced as she watched it pass harmlessly through the space he had occupied, and she caught the handle as it came hurtling back towards her with the ribbon fluttering in its wake. The man curled his arms beneath Sun’s shoulders, hoisting him up to stand, and Sun wheezed as he was jostled. His hands dropped Ryui and Jingu Bang to claw weakly at the hold. The guns fell to the deck with a resonant thud.

Despite the injury to his other wing, the man took to the sky again, though his face was strained with effort and agony. His wings surged in powerful gusts and, before Blake had a chance to move to stop him, he lifted off of the ship with Sun in his grasp.

They climbed into the air, and Blake didn’t dare fire another shot while Sun was effectively hoisted as a shield against incoming projectiles. She could only watch in horror as the Faunus reached an altitude easily ten stories high, and then the man relaxed his hold on Sun.

He began to plummet, his body in free-fall and with no chance of a safe landing. The hawk Faunus followed suit, but his wings angled him directly at Blake.

Her eyes darted across the space around her. If Sun didn’t hit the deck in a grisly splatter, he would fall into the ocean with enough force to shatter his bones. _Go, Blake!_ her mind shouted at her, trying to move her unresponsive limbs without an order of where to go, and then she noticed the foremast jutting into the air atop the ship’s bridge.

She didn’t think as she threw Gambol Shroud again, this time aiming at the angled pillar that she wasn’t entirely confident she could reach. The moment she felt the scythe hook around it, however, she ran forward and _pulled_ with every ounce of strength she had. Her heart leapt in her ribcage, and she moved so quickly she left it behind on the wooden floor as she went. Her feet lifted off the deck milliseconds before the man’s sword cut through the air she had occupied, where she had left a clone to take the blow.

Then she was swinging, twirling through the air in a wide arc around the port side of the ship, and she pulled herself up above the tallest point. Her boots tapped lightly on the roof of the bridge once she’d circled around, then she released her weapon’s hold on the antenna while her gaze stayed locked on Sun’s fall.

He was seconds away from crashing to the deck when she began to sprint. Her lungs ached and cried out for a break, but she kept moving until she propelled herself forward until she was leaping off the roof. The shrill whistle of steel cutting through air sounded far too close to Blake’s ears for her liking, but another clone was left behind to absorb the hit. Her arms reached out as she sailed off the roof.

She watched as Sun’s back fell past the point where she’d wanted to catch him, and she could barely flail in time to compensate for the change in angle. His body slammed into her chest, however, and she was able to get hold of him even as the combination of his weight and gravity pulled them both down. She twisted as they fell, keeping her feet aimed towards the ship’s deck, and prayed she would land on the solid wood as the world blurred in orange and purple streaks around them.

The moment the soles of her boots pressed against the deck, she dug into the surface as momentum sent her skidding backwards. Sun’s arm had flung around the back of her neck as they had fallen, and his fingers pressed into the juncture of her neck and shoulder. It was a good enough sign that he was alive, at least.

She didn’t get to focus on that thought for long.

Her back collided with a round, metal obstacle, and a harsh breath was ripped from her lungs as the impact jarred through her spine. A painfully quiet wheeze followed shortly after. She looked over her shoulder, and saw that she had the ship’s stern to thank for halting them. Otherwise, she and Sun would have careened into the water directly in front of the ship’s path.

“What…” Sun coughed, and his other hand reached up to rub at his throat. “What a reunion, huh?” His voice was hoarse and quiet, but he still grinned at her.

Was he _insane_? He’d almost died three times in the last few minutes, and that was what he wanted to bring up? Blake glared daggers at him, and the terror that had clenched her heart as she’d watched him fall loosened its grip. In its absence pure, bright rage surged red-hot in her veins.

“You aren’t supposed to be here!” she snapped back, and Sun winced in her arms, though the smile on his face didn’t fade entirely at first. 

“Yeah?” Sun asked, incredulous, and then he scowled. He gestured to the speck of brown and black hurtling towards them from the direction of the ship’s mast. “Well, it looks like you could use all the help you can get!”

Blake groaned.

She wanted to admonish him. She wanted to yell, to scream, to _demand_ why he was here out of _everywhere_ else he could be on Remnant.

“Can you still fight?” she asked instead, biting back her anger. This wasn’t a time to trade barbs, but she needed to know if he could defend himself. She lowered her arms to get Sun’s feet back on the deck, and he swayed lightly beside her before steadying.

“Yes, ma’am!” he said, and ran off towards where Ryui and Jingu Bang were scattered at the center of the deck. She followed close behind.

“This way!” she called once he’d secured his weapons, and arced towards the back of the ship. Sun kept close to her back, and over her head she heard the heavy beat of wings laboring to alter direction. Their footsteps pounded loudly on the wooden planks, and once they emerged onto the smaller expanse of the back deck, she spun to face Sun.

“His Semblance,” she muttered, nodding towards the man struggling to follow them, “I think he’s able to sense attacks before they happen. He moves too fast for it to be luck.”

Sun nodded. “I thought that too. But did you notice he can’t do it all the time?” He hooked the muzzles of two of his shotguns together, reforming his bō staff as he spoke. “If he’s distracted or hit from different angles, he can’t focus on every attack at once.”

Time was running out. The sound of beating wings was growing stronger. Blake looked to the direction they had come from and saw the man flying low alongside the ship, keeping just off the deck. His blood was falling in even larger droplets, mixing with the ocean waves below. She apprehensively watched his advance, and raised her weapons in preparation.

“Is your aura okay?” she asked. Out of the corner of her gaze, Sun nodded a silent affirmation.

Her eyes narrowed to slits. The sound of the man’s labored wingbeats continued to bear down on them. “I’ve got an idea.”

Sun looked to the attacker, then grinned at her as if he understood precisely what she was thinking. She hoped he did; she couldn’t explain anything else. He raised his arm to his head in a mock salute. “I’m on it!”

She charged their opponent just as his feet landed on the ship, with her boots thundering over the wood. Gambol Shroud left her fingers in a spinning arc as she threw it towards the man, and he dodged out of its path. Not that it mattered; she wasn’t intending to hit him.

The scythe bit into the wall of the ship’s upper-deck, and she yanked on the ribbon to pull herself past him. His sword flung wide to slice across her ribs, but she fazed a clone out just in time to avoid the swing. She lifted her feet off the floor as she approached the solid barrier before her, and with the momentum of her leap she braced herself, before surging forward with her sheath carving a path towards the man’s back.

He stepped forward, away from her attack and further into the open air. She somersaulted as she landed on the deck and, with a flick of her wrist, drew Gambol Shroud out of the wall to fly towards him again. He avoided the whirling blade aimed at his head before it had a chance of landing a hit, and she withdrew it with a quick tug on the ribbon it was connected to.

She continued the offensive, flinging and retracting Gambol Shroud in controlled twirls and swings. The man couldn’t get close enough to chance a hit, not without risking the flying arcs of her blade as it slashed with dark glints before her. He still managed to dodge with unnaturally quick reflexes, but Blake could see his blue eyes darting wildly to track her weapon’s movements while he backpedaled. She harried him still, using clones with abandon to steadily bring them to the center of the deck.

_Come on Sun,_ she thought as she moved. Steel screeched and white sparks flew as the man finally deflected Gambol Shroud with his shortsword, the sound grating on her ears; he was growing more confident in evading her attacks now. She eyed his feet as he took minuscule steps forward, avoiding each sweep of her weapon as he went. It was only a matter of time before he would start fighting back, and she could feel her aura beginning to waver across her skin.

The man blocked another swing, sending her blade flying to the side, and she was left exposed. He lunged, seeking an opening, and Blake fazed backwards. She smiled as she went; the crimson and gold blur of a bō staff was hurtling towards the man’s legs.

He surged upward, however, before the strike could connect. Droplets of blood rained down as he took to the sky again, and Blake wiped at the red trails they carved down her face as he flew above her head. She tracked his movements for a moment.

At a guess, she figured he was trying to force them into longer-range combat. He’d proven he could dodge bullets with ease, though she couldn’t fathom why he seemed more comfortable with that then confronting a blade. Not that it really mattered, but she couldn’t waste time worrying about such specifics. She strapped Gambol Shroud’s sheath against her back and risked a glance towards Sun, once she realized their opponent wasn’t coming back towards the ship just yet.

He didn’t return her look; he stood silently before her, his eyes drawn shut. He’d hooked Ryui and Jingu Bang at his back, and his palms were pressed together before his chest. He looked…serene, his brow relaxed and lips flat, as though he was meditating despite being in the heat of battle. She had rarely seen him this calm, and despite herself she had to admit it was a good look on him.

He seemed to _glow_ , golden light radiating from within him and pouring outward in small streaks of light. He was like a miniature star, a celestial power taking on the form of a boy, and the light grew brighter within the span of a heartbeat. Then it burst.

From the glow three translucent, golden images of Sun burst forth, and his eyes snapped open. He grinned when he noticed her stare on him, then spun around to follow his clones. They ran towards the end of the ship and, with small jumps, landed atop the railing in a loose circle with arms raised upward. Sun himself followed suit a moment later, leaping into the center of the clones’ waiting hands, and was flung skyward when they pushed him up. Two followed him, leaving one behind with expectant arms extended towards Blake.

It glowed in the outline of Sun; Blake could make out the red of his gauntlets, the shape of his hair. But his face was obscured by the ever-present glow of the aura which constructed his image. Still, she ran headfirst towards it, and leaped onto its shoulders without hesitation.

Sun’s aura was _warm_. This was not new to Blake. His name alone was all the indication she needed to know that he burned bright. But the warmth seeped unnaturally through her feet, surging through her skin as the clone launched her into the air. It didn’t dissipate even as the cool evening air whistled discordantly around her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another clone crest in its arc, beginning to fall down towards the awaiting ocean that extended endlessly in darkening waves below.

It was close enough for what she needed, however. She began to fall towards it with feet pointed to the sea. The moment the soles of her boots pressed the clone’s, they pushed against each other in tandem, and she leapt from the support. She flew higher, arcing to where another clone hung before the evening sky. Its arm reached out to her, and her fingers grasped along its wrist just as it began to fall. Sun’s aura flared and hummed at her touch, and she felt a tug pulling deep within her arm as it flung her higher. Its heat faded from her fingertips, but residual warmth remained burrowed in her bones as she rose towards the final destination.

Sun— the original, not any of his clones— was entangled with the hawk Faunus in a whirlwind of limbs, tail, and wings. He had wrapped himself around the man’s legs, grappling against the hands that clawed to loosen his grasp. The man’s wings were straining to hold them both aloft; he clearly wasn’t able to maintain his own weight along with Sun’s like he had been before, and his injured wing was faltering in its beats. There was no doubt that they were falling, albeit slowly.

The clones had thrown Blake to a position where she was just behind the pair. She was still climbing higher, and her heart thudded heavily against the confines of her ribcage as she waited for her stomach to rise in indication that she, too, was succumbing to gravity’s pull.

Silver flashed in the sun’s dying rays as she waited, however, and she gasped.

For a moment, she saw blood spray out from some undetermined point along Sun’s body, and she feared the worst. She fully expected to see his body fall away in slow motion; but her mind caught up with what was happening, chasing away what she’d conjured.

Somehow, Sun had grabbed the man’s shortsword, wrenched it from his grasp, and flung it towards the sea. No blood coated his skin, and he continued to distract the man undeterred by any new wounds. The sword spun in glistening circles while it fell, and Blake silently thanked the stars as the sword disappeared beneath her.

She felt herself reach the apex of her ascension, and wrapped Gambol Shroud’s ribbon even tighter around her fingers. Then, she threw it forward.

The ribbon unfurled from her grasp in tight waves as the scythe of her blade flew towards the man’s beating wings. Sun must have noticed, as she watched him begin to struggle even harder to climb up the man’s legs. They grappled fervently, and Blake held her breath as her hair began to whip upward around her head. She was beginning to fall, with nothing beneath her but open water, but she held tight to her ribbon and the hope that the man was too distracted to realize what was coming towards him in a dark rush of steel.

She was beneath the pair now, her arm extending above her head, pointed steadily towards them. Gambol Shroud whizzed past the man’s neck, and she yanked on the tie as hard as she could.

The scythe rushed back. The man’s head snapped up as he heard the crack of the fabric, but he was too late to dodge. She felt the length of her ribbon loop around the man’s shoulders once, twice, then three times, before the blade of her weapon sunk into his spine, between the joints of his wings. He screamed, a guttural and hoarse sound which hurt Blake’s throat with a sympathetic twinge, and then began to plummet.

Blake tugged again on the ribbon, and his body was jerked down. A heartbeat passed, and them he flung past her with flailing limbs and scattering feathers. Sun was nowhere to be seen, but she didn’t focus on his absence. With another pull she felt Gambol Shroud withdraw from the man’s back, and as she spun to face the ocean head-on, she witnessed the man tumbling through the air without her tether connected to him.

Further in the distance, she realized _The Pride_ had stopped in its path. For what reason, she couldn’t guess, but she was sure the fighting hadn’t gone unnoticed by the crew. It wasn’t too far off, and Blake angled herself such that she was falling vertically, head-first towards the deck. The wind screamed in her ears as she went, and tears were carving cold paths up her cheeks and into her hair, streaming wildly in ebony tangles.

She wasn’t entirely sure she’d make it to the ship. In fact, she was bracing herself for the cold ocean to swallow her whole, even as it broke her body. There was no way she would fall into the water unscathed, and a quiet part of her resigned herself to that fact.

Then she felt warm arms curl around her waist.

She turned her head so quickly that the base of her neck burned and twinged, and saw Sun’s profile pressed close to her. Her eyes locked on his face, and she didn’t resist the tug of his arms tightening around her. They were plummeting as one, steadfastly angled towards _The Pride_ ; but she didn’t look to see if they would make it. She may not have known why he was here, or how he’d found her…but she could admit, suspended as they were against the backdrop of the setting sun, that she was glad she wasn’t alone in that moment. Even the threat of the ocean couldn’t overshadow this revelation: she was so tired of fending for herself.

She kept her eyes locked on Sun’s cheek as they went, while he spun them around such that their backs were turned to face the ocean. He was grimacing with effort, and his palms were pressed together underneath her navel. At first, she thought he was bracing himself for the inevitable crash of water around them…but then his tan skin was illuminated with radiance.

The world came rushing back to them with crushing force— and blinding golden light— in seconds. Her side pressed into his chest, and the breath was crushed from her lungs with the pressure as their fall was abruptly halted. She felt her very bones shudder with the impact; but nothing broke, and nothing hurt beyond the ache in her overexerted muscles.

Shining arms wrapped firmly around them both, armored in the same red gauntlets Blake felt pressing into the exposed skin of her abdomen. Just as soon as they had began their fall, she realized they had crashed to a halt on solid ground.

For a moment, everything was quiet. Without the air howling in Blake’s ears, white noise hummed through her head. Her skin tingled with the memory of the evening chill. She wasn’t touching the solid surface below her feet; Sun cradled her close to his chest. Her knees hooked over the crook of one arm while his other curled around her back. His fingers dug lightly into her bicep. Her breath was labored, and her eyes were blown wide with shock and adrenaline, but when they drew up to look at Sun’s face…she saw that he was grinning at her.

She felt a soft smile grow in response. They looked at each other for a moment, and she reveled in the victory.

“Nice of you to drop by,” Sun teased. And just like that, the moment had passed. And with it, the reality of the situation fell upon her.

“Ugh…” She rolled her eyes as she groaned. With a push against his chest, she removed herself from the warmth of Sun’s hold, and quickly put distance between them with her arms crossed and gaze guarded. Sun’s smile fell, and his brow furrowed in confusion while his clones dissipated into golden sparks that winked and faded into darkness. The space around them both seemed much dimmer in their absence; the setting sun was a sliver on the horizon, barely casting enough light across the ocean to be seen—

_The ocean…_

Blake rushed to the railing of the ship without warning. She pressed against the fence, and her eyes scanned the dark waters. Back and forth she searched, looking with the faint hope that maybe she wouldn’t see what she thought she would, that perhaps she would see arms flailing, hear shouting, any sign of life…

_There._

Once she saw him, she couldn’t look anywhere else. A body floated face-down, buoyed by the waves surging softly around it. A dark stain was spreading around the man, growing larger with each rock of the water.

She swallowed around the cotton building in her throat. There was no mistaking the fact that the hawk Faunus was dead. Furthermore, she couldn’t avoid the truth that she had killed him; whether it had been with her blade, or when she had cast him towards the unforgiving ocean. Her actions caused this. Her fingers tightened around the railing as she pondered what it meant.

Blake had killed before. It was a sad truth, but a necessary one. As she watched the body drift listlessly, she thought to all the times a human had come at her with murder in their eyes, intent on ending another Faunus’s life; of all the times she had defended herself from their hands. This surely was no different. This man had tried to hurt her. Perhaps even kill her. She could acknowledge that fact more easily. What made this so hard to accept, was that he was a Faunus. This wasn’t a rage-drunk human intent on snuffing out what they didn’t understand. This was someone like her, coming at her with hard eyes and a sharp blade. She’d only been attacked by her kind like this once before, barely a month ago. Adam’s face flashed before her eyes.

She heard footsteps slowly approaching her from behind, and she finally tore her eyes away from the carnage behind her to look at Sun. He stopped once she focused on him, and he balanced hesitantly on the soles of his feet as she studied his wounds. A bruise was spreading over his cheekbone, forming an ugly green and purple patch across his face, and his bottom lip was crimson from where it had split. His sleeve was split and stained dark brown from where her bullet had grazed his arm. The hollow of his throat looked an angry red from where the man had attempted to crush his windpipe, but aside from those injuries, he looked well enough.

Then she looked at his hands, where they hung at his sides. At the shortsword he clasped tightly in one fist.

It must have landed on the ship after Sun had cast it away during his scuffle in the air. She approached him slowly, her eyes locked on the blade in silent demand for him to present it to her. He did so without complaint, raising his fist to hold the sword parallel to the deck. Their fingers brushed as she reached for the hilt, and she wasn’t sure if she imagined him running his fingertips across the back of her hand as he withdrew his hold…but she couldn’t focus on that sensation when she saw an all too familiar insignia stamped into the pommel.

A panther’s head in profile, jaw agape with a snarl and baring its teeth, silhouetted against a backdrop of three slashing, raised claw marks.

She looked back up to Sun, who watched her with a guarded expression. Her fingers tightened around the sword’s hilt, and around the handle of Gambol Shroud’s gun and katana that was still in her other hand. “We need to talk,” she said lowly.

..:|:..

Her cabin had always felt small and dark, from the moment she had boarded _The Pride_. Before, that had been because she was spiraling into paranoia due to being followed. She’d had nowhere else to turn, and the low ceiling of her room in the bowels of the ship had only aided in the sense of being backed into a wall. Confining herself to the space with no windows fed her imagination with a steady diet of fear, until every shadow looked like the form of a stranger with their eyes on her.

Now, it still felt much the same. Only one light illuminated the cramped space, cast from the small lamp bolted into the wall next to her bed. Her travel pack sat at the foot of the bed, the contents strewn across the carpeted floor haphazardly. The door at her back had been closed as best it could be; the lock had been kicked in, and splinters of wood littered the doorway in hazardous disarray. The ceiling was so low the tips of her ears could brush the salt-stained wood.

She leaned with her back against one wall, arms crossed over her chest, while Sun sat on the bed’s rumpled sheets with darkness shrouding his gaze. Both of them were staring at the sword set in the no-man’s-land between them, with the White Fang’s symbol shining in the lamplight. They’d been silent since they descended from the deck, and no-one had crossed their path as Blake had led the way to her room. The captain was surely going to come question them soon; she had no idea what she was going to say to him. Or even what she wanted to say to the boy sitting sullenly before her.

_No time like the present to start_ , she reasoned. “Why are you here, Sun?”

He didn’t respond immediately. His eyes remained on the sword— as did hers, to be fair— but she saw him twitch at the sound of her voice. His hands were clasped between his legs, and she noticed his fingers tighten out of the corner of her eye while his head lifted to face her. She kept her gaze on the weapon for a little while longer, until he spoke.

“I told you,” he started, “you seemed like you needed all the help you could get.”

Blake’s eyes narrowed, and she looked him in the eye. “That’s not what I meant—”

“Look,” Sun interrupted, just as the anger surged within her, all the more potent to berate him. “I saw you run off.” His expression fell, and the strangest emotion flickered across his face. Grief. “The night Beacon tower fell.”

Blake’s glare crumpled, and she felt her throat tighten. Her ears, previously folded tight against her skull, loosened and perked up.

“Once we landed in Vale, you made sure everyone was okay…and then you just took off without saying anything.” Sun shook his head against the weight of painful, exhausting memory. It was a burden she recognized well. “No-one knew where you went, or if you were safe.” He returned his gaze to the sword between them.

She unfurled her arms, but didn’t move away from the wall. She watched him in silence, while his eyes roamed over the length of the blade and the ship rocked gently underneath them. The swell and crest of the waves seemed to surge with her emotions; every rise came with a bubbling anger, every fall accompanied by a yawning maw of guilt.

He didn’t understand. He _couldn’t_ understand, she reasoned. “You don’t get it, Sun,” she voiced aloud. His head snapped up to look at her once she spoke. She averted her gaze when she saw nothing but hard determination in his eyes.

“No, I _do_ get it,” he countered. She cut herself off as he rose from the bed, and gestured at the sword. “Look, I didn’t follow you straight away. Just let me explain, please?”

She remained silent, and tilted her head for him to continue.

“I figured wherever you were going, you knew what you were doing. I was worried as hell, sure…but you’re really hard to find when you’re trying to hide!” He grinned sheepishly as he spoke. Blake said nothing. “I decided to catch a boat back to Mistral. With the CCT in Vale offline, I thought if I could get service, I could call you, make sure you were okay…but you know, now that I think about it, I wasn’t sure if you’d be anywhere that was in range of a tower…

“But then one day, I was sitting in that dingy town— the one with the port and the expired fish, remember? And I see you walk by!” Sun gestured at her, as if she didn’t already know who _you_ was. “By the way, I didn’t get a chance to say it before, but I’m digging the new clothes—” He scratched at the back of his neck as he tossed the compliment into the space between them. “—anyways, you walked by. I saw that guy behind you a little while later. He looked like he was up to something bad, but I didn’t know what at first. So I followed him…and that’s when I realized he was following you.”

Sun shrugged as he paused for breath. “You kept locking yourself up in your motel room, like you knew you were being tailed, and that guy would post up outside the building. He gave me the slip a couple of times, but a street rat recognizes his own, you know? He wanted something from you, and I figured I would keep an eye out for when he made his move. Then, once I realized what _you_ were up to…I knew exactly what you were going to do.”

She quirked an eyebrow at that, bemused. “And what do you think I was doing?”

Sun scoffed, and gestured again. “You were looking for someone!” He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and she blinked in surprise. “I mean, you were really hard to read, but that guy after you clearly had something to do with it!” He waved wildly as he spoke, just as animated and exuberant as she remembered him. “And then I thought about how quickly you left Vale. I’m sure I know why.” He pointed a finger at her, and raised his other hand into the air, fist closed. The victorious fist pump meant he punched the ceiling, and he winced.

“You’re going on a one-woman mission against the White Fang!” Sun grinned assuringly at her once he finished.

Blake blinked back. An amused smile had been forming on her lips as he’d spoken, urged to the surface by the certainty and excitement in Sun’s voice, but it fell the moment the mention of the organization left his lips. “…What!?” she finally said, and her ears folded against her head as she scowled. No, that wasn’t right at all!

Sun didn’t take that as discouragement to continue. “You’ve always felt the Fang was your fight,” he said, “I mean, they show up…trash your school, hurt your friends— it makes perfect sense!” Each point was accentuated by him counting the number of slights with his fingers, tallying up to three grievances while he spoke. He shrugged, as if to say, _and that’s that._

Blake shook her head. “I can’t believe you,” she muttered. She was holding back a laugh as she spoke; not because she found his presumption humorous. Quite the opposite, in fact. But she was so incredulous and baffled that she couldn’t help but want to laugh in his face at his hypothesis. He was so far off the mark, he may as well have tried to shoot a bullseye tied upside down and blindfolded. He’d have better luck hitting the target than he had just now.

Yet Sun carried on as if she hadn’t spoken. “But there’s no way I’m letting you do it alone!” he said. “You’ve got a good idea, sure, but you’re gonna need someone watching your back…” somehow, his grin grew even wider, and he pointed at himself. “That’s where I come in!”

Her shock fell away, replaced again by the anger simmering beneath her skin.

“You can’t be serious,” she snapped, her voice cracking into the open air, and because she had nothing else to say except to point out how in the dark he was, she continued. “How are you so…so _blind_?” She flung her hands above her head, not knowing what else to do aside from wrapping them around his shoulders and to shake sense into him. The confidence in his eyes wavered, and his arms lowered to his sides while his brow furrowed.

“What’re you…”

She cut him off before he could finish. “I’m not going anywhere _near_ the White Fang, Sun!”

“But…” Sun’s frown grew, and then his eyes cast downward. He gestured at the sword. “How do you explain this, then?” he rallied, finding more evidence to support his absurd claim. She glowered at him as he continued. “This guy’d been following you for days! He _attacked_ you! Obviously he had something against you!”

“And you’ve been following me too, apparently!” she shouted back, “do you have something against me, too?”

Sun flinched. “No,” he said curtly, “I wanted to help you! You were so nervous though—”

Blake finally laughed, and her lips curled into a sneer. “And I was right to be,” she said, “ _especially_ since I had both you _and_ him watching me! Do you realize how…how _nerve-racking_ it is, to be looking over your shoulder every second of the day? Knowing there’s someone watching you, and that you can’t see them, or know what they want!?” She snarled wordlessly, and turned away from him. If she looked at him for another second, she was going to see red.

The air between them was tense, heavy as a thunderstorm ready to break. Electricity crackled over her fingertips, each surge of the ocean beneath them was the distant rumble of thunder. Her shoulders shook with anger and beneath that, barely-repressed shock. Every time she blinked, she saw the dark stain of blood spilling into the water. She saw blue eyes staring down at her. She felt fire on her skin.

She didn’t know _why_ it all had happened the way it did, and that was the worst part. The uncertainty of it all. Why that man had been following her. Why he’d attacked her with a sword bearing the White Fang’s symbol.

_“I will destroy everything you love.”_

She didn’t want to think of the possibility that Adam had ordered this. But she wouldn’t put the idea past him yet; he was never one to make a threat he didn’t follow up on.

The ship rose and fell with a particularly strong swell, and she steadied herself with a hand pressed to the wall. She didn’t know what to do from here, didn’t know where to go. If she’d been followed by the Fang for this long, she was sure they knew she was heading to Menagerie by now. There was no way her shadow hadn’t reported back to his superiors; whether this was Adam’s doing or not, she’d inadvertently painted a target on her parents’ backs by taking such a straight path to Kuo Kuana. Anyone who knew her family would recognize that she had no other reason to return to the fledgling capital.

She shuddered, even with the warm sea air within the cabin.

“Hey…”

A jolt ran down her spine. With a quick jerk of her head, she looked back at Sun. She had almost forgotten his presence, lost in her thoughts, as she had been. At the sound of his voice, she remembered she wasn’t alone.

“I get why you’re upset,” Sun said. His voice was soft and low, and muffled by the small room. He didn’t look at her until her eyes landed on him. Once he did, his stare was open and, if she didn’t know any better, almost regretful. “I probably should have showed myself to you. But I didn’t want to put you in more danger once I realized that guy was up to something. I’m sorry I followed you and didn’t say anything…but I’m _not_ sorry for protecting you. That guy was dangerous and you know it.” His expression went from apologetic to hardened in the time it took for Blake to blink. “We got lucky today, but who knows how many more goons they’re gonna send after you?” He crossed his arms and nodded. “So, I’m glad I was here to look out for you. But I’m sorry for making you nervous.”

Blake stared unflinchingly at him as he finished. He met her eyes evenly, and as she watched him, she felt some of her rage melt underneath the coolness of his gaze. He remained resolute in the face of her frustration. After a few moments of looking into his eyes, she sighed, and shut hers. “Fine,” she finally said, and shook her head.

She didn’t miss the small sigh of relief that Sun let out at her concession. “So…” he started, “…if you’re not going after the Fang, what _are_ you doing?”

_What am I doing?_ Her thoughts echoed. That was the question she’d been asking herself for weeks, and she still didn’t have a full answer. Aside from warning her parents, running off into the desert was as close as she had to a plan. Would her parents even believe her? Would they want to see her or hear from her, after what she’d said to them when she left? It hurt to think of the possibility that they would turn her away, but she wouldn’t begrudge them that. It was the least she deserved, she reasoned.

“I need to sort some things out,” she said then, by way of explanation. She didn’t look at Sun while he made an obvious attempt to make her.

When she still didn’t, he scoffed. “Then why not do it with your team?” he asked, “your friends?”

Her gaze snapped up to his, and narrowed dangerously. “ _You’re_ one to talk!” she accused. How dare he judge her! When he had up and left his team far more times than she! “You didn’t mention your team in your story. I’m guessing Neptune, Scarlet, and Sage aren’t hiding out somewhere else on the ship?”

Sun at least had the good grace to look guilty at her accusation…but he was quick to shrug it off, as always. “You really think I can get Neptune on the ocean?” he said with a laugh. “I mean, thanks for the vote of confidence, but nah. They flew back to Mistral! I told them I’d catch up.” He shrugged. “S’not the first time I left them to take a boat.”

Her expression remained unimpressed throughout his explanation.

Still, her lack of a reaction didn’t deter him from steering the conversation back towards the treacherous, blood-stained waters of before. “So…if you’re not going after the White Fang, then where are you going?”

There were many words for it, she thought. A safe haven. A cramped little island. A last hope. She hadn’t been there in years…but she could still hear the sea air singing softly through the palm leaves, could still feel the crunch of sand beneath her feet. She could feel the press of warm bodies against hers in crowded market streets, the sense of belonging and community she hadn’t quite replicated anywhere else. She _missed_ it, with a heartache so strong her chest constricted painfully whenever she thought of it. She knew she had no right to think of it this way, but the first word that always came to mind when she thought of Kuo Kuana was…

“…Home,” she murmured. “To Menagerie.”

She hadn’t meant to tell Sun that; the island’s name fell out from her lips, chasing after the word which should have no meaning to her. It felt like a condemnation, to voice her destination aloud where anyone could hear. Still, more than that, it was a relief to acknowledge where she had decided would be her final stop.

When she looked at Sun, she saw her words had rekindled that determined spark in his storm gray eyes. He was smiling again, and before she could ask him what he was thinking, he spoke.

“Well I’m coming with you!” he said matter-of-factly, his tone leaving no room for argument. When she only stared at him in bemusement, he waved towards her her. “The Fang are up to something and you know it. And just because you’re not going after them, doesn’t mean they’re not going after you. I’m sure what happened today won’t be the last time. Besides, I’m…” Then he looked away, and Blake raised an eyebrow at his sudden silence. “…kinda already on the boat.”

As if to emphasize what he’d said, the ocean roiled with a particularly strong wave around them.

Blake looked at him for another moment, and then heaved a strong breath. He was right…in his own way. She wasn’t too happy to acknowledge it, but if the White Fang truly were making their move against her this soon…she’d rather have someone watching her back, other than herself. She was so tired of looking over her shoulder.

“Well…” she began hesitantly, then pressed forward past the residual nervousness, “…this has been some reunion, huh?”

She allowed a minuscule smile to come to her face when she heard Sun whoop victoriously.

“This is going to be great!” he exclaimed. “I’ve never been to Menagerie before…” Blake’s ears perked unconsciously at the admission, but she didn’t focus on it as she uncrossed her arms. “This’ll be a regular journey to the East!”

Even though this was far from the vacation he was treating it as, Blake didn’t have the heart to ruin Sun’s good mood just yet. She let him celebrate their partnership, while they both ignored the sword laying between them, glinting brightly under the lamplight.

The White Fang could wait, she figured, now that she was beginning to see a purpose beyond running fearful and blind, into the wilderness.


End file.
